The principle occupation of the Mercury Theater is waiting for Orson.
Another day, another trip to the Ritz at the Bourse. Today my film of choice was Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles, based on the novel by Robert Kaplow. The short version of my review is that the film could have used a little more Welles and a lot less Me, but since the Me in question was Zac Efron and the role of Welles was inhabited by the relatively unknown Christian McKay, there probably wasn't much chance of that happening. Still, the script was littered with enough references to the man's work that any Welles aficionado should come away satisfied. One thing I can't say is what drew Linklater to the material in the first place because the end result doesn't really bear his stamp at all, but it's been a few years since the one-two punch of Fast Food Nation and A Scanner Darkly, so I wouldn't begrudge him the chance to put someting out there.
A rather hectic backstage comedy-drama (the action takes place over the course of a single week), the film follows an aspiring young thespian (Efron, who one imagines will have to stop playing high schoolers eventually) who lucks into the role of Lucius in Welles's legendary modern-dress production of Julius Caesar in 1937. He also stumbles into a romance of sorts with the Mercury Theater's overworked production assistant (Claire Danes) which turns sour when she chooses career advancement (i.e. sleeping with the boss) over being wooed by a callow youth who could hardly be said to have the world at his feet. The girl in his life who's much more his speed is the aspiring writer (Zoe Kazan) he meets on his first day in New York City and who he desperately tries to impress by passing himself off as much more worldly than he really is.
The rest of the cast is filled out by actors impersonating various Mercury Players, with Ben Chaplin as a nerve-wracked George Coulouris, Eddie Marsan as John Houseman, James Tupper as a spot-on Joseph Cotten, and Leo Bill as Norman Lloyd, the resident cut-up who's worried that his role (as Cinna the Poet) is going unrehearsed because Welles is always skipping out to speed to his various radio appearances. The film really comes alive whenever he swoops back in, though. Watching McKay, it's easy to see why people were willing to put up with Welles's dictatorial manner. He might not have been the easiest guy in the world to work with (or for), but as long as you stayed on his good side you could be assured that the work would be both challenging and rewarding. Now all someone has to do is write a film about Welles for McKay that doesn't revolve around mister High School Musical.